Summer is traditionally considered the time of year associated with rest, vacations and recovery, and the last thing you want to do in summer is work. It is the theme of the relationship between summer and people’s productivity that the author explores in his article. Throughout the text, the thesis is examined and proven, which is a statement of a Harvard librarian, John Langdon Sibley, complaining of the sweltering summer heat in 1852, which exhausts him (Konnikova). To confirm this observation, the author turns to modern research dating back to 2008 and 2021.
As shown by the obtained statistical data, the weather directly impacted the duration of people’s work. On rainy days, workers stayed at their workplaces half an hour longer and worked more productively than in the heat (Konnikova). A relationship between temperature and weather and cognitive ability has been established through other studies since much less compelling arguments were enough to persuade students in pleasant summer weather (Konnikova). Finally, the last derived relationship is the temperature on mood, which is an inverted-U pattern.
First of all, it is worth noting that the author supports most of the arguments presented with research, directly referring to them. This factor significantly enhances the article’s credibility since the indicated facts can be verified. Besides, the article’s text is presented sequentially, and the ideas follow one from the other, thereby creating a coherent narrative. However, the article’s disadvantage is the too frequent use of third-party sources, research and statistics. So, in the second paragraph of the article, two studies are presented as an argument – data from the American Time Use Survey of 2008 and the work of researchers from two universities in 2012 (Konnikova). Despite direct references and numbers that support the proposed theses, the entire paragraph consists of paraphrasing information from sources. Research shows that workers are more productive on sunny days, but the author did not draw any conclusions from the data provided.
The lack of any reasoning on the topics raised is the article’s main problem, which continues throughout almost the entire text. The following paragraph, which focuses on yet another study, briefly describes the experiment conducted on the effects of weather on cognitive abilities and the findings that the researchers themselves came to (Konnikova). However, the reader does not see any conclusions that the author would have made based on the given data. While the sources and data used are compelling enough, they are not an effective argument in the context of an article that aims to answer a specific question. The reader needs to independently analyze the provided statistical and qualitative data, thereby actually studying the topic on his own. The author in this article, in many ways, does not seem to set the task of convincing the reader of something, providing them with a compilation of data for independent study instead.
In the next part of the article, however, the author contradicts the concept expressed above. She stops describing specific studies and instead uses them as arguments in her analysis. However, it looks unconvincing due to the use of insufficiently correct semantic constructions. Konnikova seems to suggest some ideas, which later find very little development. For example, the author suggests that the cognitive shift may be related to emotion, as people feel happier in sunnier weather (Konnikova). Three short references to various studies support this, but no detailed study of the results or analysis methods is undertaken. Instead, the evidence from other people’s research is cited as quick facts, from which the equally short and inconclusive conclusion is drawn that the happiest season is summer.
Although the story is coherent enough, and one idea follows from the other, almost all are equally unconvincing. So, the transition from the influence of weather on productivity and brain activity to people’s emotional state at different temperatures and the sunlight is logical and consistent. However, none of the topics described is deeply investigated. All the cited sources are studied superficially; they are used to bring one or two specific facts, which should supposedly serve as arguments to convince the reader of the author’s position’s correctness. Finally, all the sources used and the arguments presented, even considering their ineffectiveness and inconclusiveness, must lead to a specific conclusion. However, the inconclusiveness of this article peaks at its end, as there is simply no resolution. The last paragraph of the text concludes only from the previously cited source; however, it does not consider or refer to all previously studied material.
Thus, the article breaks off after bringing another fact through a link to another study. Consequently, the author violates the text’s very structure, which until then was a coherent narration with an introduction, a description of the problem, and attempts to explain it. There is no conclusion in the article that would emphasize the initially put forward thesis, compiling all sources together and collecting all the information to form a clear answer. Instead, the text is a designation of the problem and many references to studies on this topic, which would be convincing in its entirety, but not as conclusions taken separately from the work context. Therefore, it can be concluded that Konnikova’s article has problems both with the format, which is observed throughout the entire text due to the lack of reasoning, and argumentation since none of the indicated factors has been disclosed convincingly enough. However, it is possible that the author’s goal was to provide a compilation of facts and research for further independent study. Such an assumed goal was fulfilled perfectly, but it is entirely impossible to call the article in question convincing.
Work Cited
Konnikova, Maria. “Why Summer Makes Us Lazy.” The New Yorker, Web.